Family Tree (2000)

FILM REVIEW; Boy and Geezer Save a Tree (How Could They Fail?)

By LAWRENCE VAN GELDER

Published: April 21, 2000

Joyce Kilmer would surely love ''Family Tree.'' After all, this juvenile film is all about trying to save a handsome old oak tree.

For anyone else, tolerance for ''Family Tree'' may depend on a taste for white bread. Like one of those loaves, ''Family Tree'' can lay claim to a fair share of ingredients that sound admirable: standing up for principle, defending the environment, overcoming adversity, valuing friendship and coming to understand that everybody is good at something.

But as directed by Duane Clark (the son of Dick Clark of ''American Bandstand'' and countless New Year's Eves in Times Square), written by Paul Canterna and performed by actors like Robert Forster, Naomi Judd and Cliff Robertson, ''Family Tree'' turns out to be palatable only if you've never made the acquaintance of any crisp, crackling, crusty stories of childhood. Dickens this is not.

In this slow, sentimental, sincere and heavy-handed fairy tale about the struggle of chubby-cheeked 10-year-old Mitch Musser (Andrew Lawrence) to save the ancient oak, the outcome is never in doubt. The villains are cartoon pushovers, the acting is as subtle as a stick in the ribs and the sun rarely shines without slanting into a room or glowing through a curtain of leaves. The music includes ''Even God Must Get the Blues'' and ''The Heart Never Forgets.''

The wisdom is simple: ''Anything worth having is worth fighting for'' and ''If football's not your game, so what?''

In the scales of conflict that furnish its plot, ''Family Tree'' weighs the old tree against new industry in a dying town beset by widespread unemployment. It also pits little Mitch, known as Mess, against his father, Henry (Mr. Forster). Henry Musser has not only attracted a 300-job factory and stands to profit from it as the developer, but he also favors Mitch's older, more athletic brother, Mark (played by Matthew Lawrence, Andrew's brother).

In little Mitch's initially lonely campaign to save the tree from Benjamin Plastics (named perhaps for Benjamin Braddock of ''The Graduate''), the boy, who likes to tell the oak his troubles, has only two sympathizers. One is his soft-spoken, understanding mom, Sarah (Ms. Judd); the other is Larry (Mr. Robertson), a scruffy looking old-timer (Korean War vintage) with a limp, a penchant for whittling, a slowly doled out history and a habit of clutching his midsection from time to time to signal one and all that he is not well. Not well at all.

Larry, a widower, has returned to town after a long absence and proves to be Mitch's chief ally, staunch friend and fairy godfather in the campaign to remind the townspeople how much the oak has meant to their lives.

Well-meaning and simplistic, ''Family Tree'' seems more suitable to the television screen than the movie theater.

FAMILY TREE

Directed by Duane Clark; written by Paul Canterna; director of photography, John Peters; edited by Matthew Booth; music by Mike Curb and Randy Miller; production designer, Katherine Vallin; produced by Mr. Curb and Carole Curb Nemoy; released by Warner Vision Films. Running time: 90 minutes. This film is rated G.